Remaing models to beta:

[Rebel]

Btw, are you going to keep with naming the generator for the L.H. as E.A.R.L.? (Many contents inside here will be a tribute to Homer's Gang)

[Remdul]

Almost forgot about that dead tree thing again:

http://home.planet.nl/~buijs512/trescom/deadtree.jpg

The zip:

http://home.planet.nl/~buijs512/trescom/deadtree.zip

One new texture with opacity map, uses existing palette. I tried to cover up the texture seems, but that was hard. Anyway, it probably looks ok if you ignore that.

* Sure Rebel, no problem. We have a seperate control panel right? Then the generator will be hooked up to that. I think the panel will look something like the one on the crater entrance wall but much bigger, lotsa colored buttons inside. I'll put the name on the metal door.

[Rebel]

Like the tree, quite cool looking. Yea, I was sorta assuming that you'd have a separate, generator type cylinder to say the left side of a boxy type control/system panel. Your imagination and design generally bests my own, so I'll leave the actual design to you. I figure we'll place it all the way to the back of the l.house, right side of the tower entranceway.

[Remdul]

Here's the generator:

http://home.planet.nl/~buijs512/trescom/generator.jpg

And the zip:

http://home.planet.nl/~buijs512/trescom/generator.zip

Two new textures, sharing the palette of the textures of the chainsaw. Uses one texture of the chainsaw, and another of the lab_entrance structure (red button).

[Rebel]

Woah, made quick work of that task -- nice model. There is another piece (control panel) to this though, yes? Could probably use a wire harness to connect the two.

[Remdul]

Yep, that's what I had in mind. Once I'll got the panel done I'll upload it an leave the placement to you. When everything is in position we can export it to 3ds, so I can use the models' exact coordinates to attach the cables which then should match seemlessly.

[Rebel]

Good idea (about cable placement), Rem. We're moving right along here now, we're really closing in on this project.

*Oh, btw, if you still have that jerry can that you modelled for tc-level, but we didn't use, upload it. A good prop to go along with the generator.

[Remdul]

Sure, I still got that lying around. I'll tweak its texture a little bit if needed and up it.

I spend yesterday updating Max to get rid of that irritating crashing problem. I ended up with a bunch of errors at startup so I had to re-install everything. Though it seems to work a bunch better now, no crashes yet.

Did some work on the gallimimus, is gonna look neat. I'll upload a pic when I got it done.

Quickly modeled that control panel:

http://home.planet.nl/~buijs512/trescom/earl.jpg

No textures yet, but I plan to add a small startup guide on the back side of the door that says how to get the system running. Its something like this:

1) flip the main power switch (left)
2) turn on <insert some sort of technical name for device here> by pressing the button labeled <blah>
3) wait for gauge to reach <value>
4) press button labeled <bla>

And so on. I'll probably also add a bunch of lights as well.

I don't think this'll be hard to script right? I figured it would still be a bit of a simple point and click thing, so adding the gauges and stuff might make it more interesting. So we need the gauges to be animated, can use either ascii animations with a script wait time, or rotate the hands of the gauges by script (like the centrifuge) and use a script wait time...

[Rebel]

Looks good, Remdul. I think a standard animation script (like centrifuge) would do just fine. Scripting shouldn't be a problem, just takes a bit of time; probably use some type of delay so the gauge has time to reach its desired readout just as you said. If you want, you could upload the unfinished control pane anytime, that way I could upload a tpm file to you so that you can model the wiring harness. There's a small block on the front of the generator which would be a perfect location for a harness plug. Actually, you could probably just use the two screenshots in the zip below as a guide.

http://www.geocities.com/lastrebel41/genswire.zip

Dinos: Neat, keep plugin' away at them. I'd like to be able to get at least a revamped raptor (more true to jp style) and that club-type steggie dino in the beta. I ran more in-depth experiments over the weekend with the herbivores and found out that we don't need to turn them into carnivores to eat n' drink. All plants will be AIType 4 (herbivore food -- carnivores ignore the aitype), so there'll be something for them to eat, no matter where they end up. Also, AIType 7 equals water to both carnivores and herbivores.

[Remdul]

Sure, here it is:

http://home.planet.nl/~buijs512/trescom/earl_pre.zip

Note that I might have to move a few buttons, gauges while I go about and finish it.

That plant stuff sounds cool. So when a herbivore gets hungry it'll eat any plant? Nifty. I think we get our dinos more active indeed. The only thing they did in the original levels was stand around and getting eaten instead of living and do their thing.

So make those herbivores very hungry and thirsty.

* Btw, yes I'll finish the raptor before I'll work on any other dino.

For the beta I think we'll have two herb's and two carnivores; parasaur & gallimimus, raptor & dilophosaur. And of cource, we already have the pteras and comps. So that leaves the two big ones, the ankylosaur and the ceratosaurus for the final version.

[Rebel]

Rem, might want to check out that tpm file again. All I'm getting is axis points with no models showing. (GeomAdd reports unrecognized data along with models having 0 verts and 0 faces) See 3rd paragraph for zip to download -- problem understood and fixed.

*Raptor -- get rid of those funky colors too, ok? Don't know why they just didn't stick with the jp type look. (should post up a shot of the new raptor in the news once completed -- we need to start releasing a little more info)

Here's the location and the model tpm zip, Martijn. GeomAdd didn't like the fact that there was no texture assignments, messed up the acceptable format of the tpm. (Just added the ,1 after the faces, so no biggie). I noticed that you have the indicator pointers as separate models, if you want to move these with a play animation, I think we could, but perhaps going with straight animations with individual gauges would be better from an appearance and operational standpoint. So, yea, I think going the centrifuge way is probably the best choice.

If we include the gallimimus in the beta, I think we'll make them a bit schizoid, whereas they'll flee more readily (so they'll be more likely to scatter about the Island on their own), rather than face off or grunt at Anne like a steg. I don't want to push you too much on the dino assortment in the beta, 4 is great, but even 2 or 3 is alright for the beta. Seriously, we should be able to finish up our remaining modelling/puzzling tasks in a few weeks time, I hope, so we'll be able to concentrate on dino insertion after that. I'd like to think that we'd be able to get the beta out there sometime in Oct.

[Remdul]

Sure, sounds great.

Yep, no material where applied so that probably caused the errors upon import. I'll update my export script, create a dummy material and point those face material indices to it.

Raptors will look like the ones from the movies, so no funky colors. I liked both the brow apearance of the JP1 raptors and the feathers on the JP3 raptors, so instead of having different tribes we can have male and female raptors. And then of cource some younger ones. Shouldn't take much time at all to create a few variations as its only a matter of switching textures.

Reminds me. Can we put in a nest somewhere, with raptor eggs. If you steel them the raptors should be able to follow and attack you right (food triggers)?

[Rebel]

Reminds me. Can we put in a nest somewhere, with raptor eggs. If you steel them the raptors should be able to follow and attack you right (food triggers)?

Yea, we actually did that already in tc-level (staynear targets), though the raptors only reacted to one particular egg being stolen (they'd follow). I just looked over slugger's level (fixed a few errors for him) and noticed he's lived n' learned and implemented the same thing in the level that he's building now (I assume that he noticed the scripts in the tc-level). So, we may or may not actually repeat the above. As far as locales, there's alot of nook n' crannys along the backside of the crater to 'hide' a nesting raptor, so I don't necessarily rule out using the setup altogether. If we tucked a nesting raptor up against the crater walls somewhere, it'd take an OTP explorer to actually run across the nester.

Once we get a raptor up n' running, I'll create a short trailer in smack format (it'll be a small download that way 3 - 5mbs) to showcase your new creation and give a brief look at a section of our Island where the action is taking place. I'll probably keep it under 30 seconds of play, include audio and perhaps I'll dub in a bit of music as well. Perhaps right before release, when all beta elements are in place, we can create a full length promotional trailer (again in smk format) to jazz up interest just before the actual level is available for download.

Yup, we're not exactly flying, but we are closing in. I think the list is down to finishing up those controls you're working on now, the venture's pilot house stuff and the computer control room. That's the big stuff, beyond the obvious task of your dinosaurs, of course. On my end, I think scripting the radio and the computer room will be the more difficult tasks. The LHGenerator shouldn't be too much trouble. As far as dinosaur insertion, well, so long as the bones system is on the money, then the work on my end is rather easy. You got the hard part.

The rest:

Pilot's lair (the link for the template is still here somewhere - I modelled some stuff for its interior, could use my stuff if it's acceptable to you)
Balloon (mostly deflated, we'll lay it out across ocean (no basket) )
Main Waterfall
Hanger Light Circuit Box (that's for our player electrocution -- described more in depth on 1st page)
AirTanks (1 broken, 1 good)
Spray Paint Graffiti EasterEgg setup (InGen Gang names pre-painted, along with actual spray paint mist, the sprayin' of 'Anne Jones waz here')
2 ID Cards, used for computer input (maybe with pics of actual ingen employees? JPH? Sarah? (I have a thing for Julianne Moore ) would have 5 digit codes on them, 1 good, 1 code will be access revoked)

As far as the end part of the level, once Anne jumps into the water with the airtank, we'll seize camera control and have it look as if she's beneath the water and slowly moving down into the cavern hole. I already have a scuba noise wave, but maybe we could use an animation plate with a few bubbles coming up to complete the illusion. Per earlier planning, the tc~river promo level will loadup afterwards....


... and, I think that's about it. I sorta liked the idea of having that cavern obstruction puzzle, though if I read you right, generally when you don't respond, that means you don't like the idea. Reconsider it if you want. I still like the general idea. In lieu of that timer crap, I think we could just have a stack of dynamite already in place and player would need to find a zippo lighter (action key useage) to ignite the boom. I know the boarded up section and the after explosion version isn't a problem for you, though I do realize that you're looking at three rather complicated animated texture jobs (flame, dusty flash explosion and dynamite fuse sizzle), so I understand if you nix the idea altogether.

[Remdul]

Here's the jerrycan Rebel:

http://home.planet.nl/~buijs512/trescom/jcan.zip

Touched up the texture a bit, uses an existing palette. Has the script included I wrote for it way back but you may want to check it.

SMK trailer sounds great. Btw, I think you can better use Bink compression, most of the time the quality is better and the file is smaller than SMK. Assume you save them as self-executables...

I remembered something about eggs, but yeah, we already used it indeed.

Explosives thing doesn't sound bad at all. I'm sure InGen would have had a lot of it to blast holes down there. I'll model a few boxes/crates with TNT, and a detenator. Smoke, explosion etc. no problem.

[Rebel]

Got it (jerrycan). I never explored Bink with the smack tools, I'll look into it though.

*So, cavern puzzle is in? Neat. I think having that last puzzle to conquer is a sound idea. It's complex, but knowing your abilities, it'll come out quite cool.